Wednesday, 15 December 2010

Fused by Kari Lee Townsend

I meant to get this review up way sooner than this but I’m in kind of a reading funk right now, sorry.

Fused

by Kari Lee Townsend

Summary: After Sam is fused with her cell phone, she's ready to conquer the world! Or at least the 8th grade...

When Samantha Granger touches a meteor while talking on her cell phone, her life is changed forever: her body now has all the capabilities of her phone (GPS, phone, text, camera). She secretly calls herself a "Digital Diva" as she rushes to answer emergency calls.

But will her identity be discovered when sparks fly (literally!) between her and Trevor, her dreamy crush? Samantha has to get a handle on her abilities and quick, because when Sam gets kidnapped and the entire town is in danger, she is the only one who can save them.

This review is going to be kind of mixed. I mean, I liked the book but at the same time, it wasn’t really my cup of tea and some things about it annoyed me a little.

I guess I’ll start with the negatives, just to get those out of the way.

In the beginning, the characters seemed kind of shallow, too focused on looks and clothes and material things and that is one of my biggest pet peeves in books. It’s the reason I’m not into books like Gossip Girl and that sort of thing… but I didn’t notice it so much as the story progressed.

Then there was the biggest negative for me: the age of the characters. I don’t read a lot of middle grade books, but in this one, it was like half the time it seemed as if the characters should’ve been older teens based on the way they talked/acted and the other half, they seemed too immature/young.

Examples of both of these things: with the main character, the way she thought about her crush seemed a bit off -- I mean, a 13 year old girl who hasn’t even had her first kiss yet checking out the body of her crush and describing how his muscles ripple as he walks and he looks like an Abercrombie model (and the guy she’s describing is also only 13 so the description doesn't sound that convincing anyway).

Maybe I was just more innocent when I was 13 (although, that doesn’t seem likely), but my crushes at that age were usually about how cute the guy was and his personality usually played a part in it too (I liked the guys that could make me laugh), it wasn't about how hot his body was... that was strictly limited to Leonardo DiCaprio/Backstreet Boys/NSync posters, not real life crushes.

And for the flip side of the coin, for example: there was this party scene and just… the reactions/interactions in that scene seemed younger than the characters were meant to be. They were too accepting of the whole superhero thing, almost… like, you’d expect 8 year olds to easily accept and react to in that sort of way but not 13 year olds.

Basically, the voice didn’t really match up to the age of the characters a lot of the time. I think it would’ve worked better if the characters were about 15/16 to start with.

Those are the only things about the book that particularly bothered me. Beyond that, it was cute and entertaining and it managed to make me laugh a few times and I did connect to the main character because I found myself rooting for her and the boy she liked to work things out and I would totally cringe in empathy for her when she would say or do something dorky and embarrassing.

I liked the plot, it was really interesting and that was probably my favourite part of the book.

I would recommend the book because it was a fun read, the reason I wasn't that into it was more down to personal preference than an actual problem with the book (I’ve seen plenty of positive reviews of the book so the issues I had weren’t a universal thing, it’s just personal taste/opinion.), I’d probably give it 3/5 stars.